Davos 2025.
Ramamargarine harping on about “working together” and all that jazz… but back home he have got several laws targeting white people financially, doing nothing about farm murders and ignoring high corruption levels in the government.
Trump pardoned Ross Ulbricht. Silk Road was not a good thing.
Wow, a life sentence for drug dealing though. 9 years might be too short, but 2 lifes plus 40? Woof.
While I agree that two life sentences may be too much, let’s not pretend he was standing on a street corner peddling cocaine to the neighbourhood kids. He was convicted of a host of conspiracy charges including conspiracy to distribute narcotics, money laundering, computer hacking, and trafficking false documents. And, while he wasn’t charged, evidence was introduced at his trial that he had paid to have at least five people killed in a “murder for hire” scheme (although I don’t think anyone was actually killed). Supposedly that’s a big reason the judge gave him a life sentence, and why the appellate court upheld the sentence.
Not a fan of that honestly. Using evidence of one crime to increase the sentence for another. I get where libertarian organizations are calling this overreach. They should have added more charges, DAs aren’t exactly known for not piling up the charges so the fact that they didn’t add solicitation to the list would be a red flag for me.
This all looks like 20 years or so. But hell, I’m not a judge, thank God. Reminds me of the hackers that used to get banned for life from using computers and shit. Because they used the internet, or computers people freak out. Hell, gang bosses often don’t get sentences like that.
I’m sure he’ll end up in the grey/black market crap again and end up back in prison anyway. Selling US Passports and drugs is just easier than real work, or at least more exciting.
Silk Road was mostly drugs but there was a lot of other stuff on there as well. Illegal services and some human trafficking as well. He did put out murder for hire, though as @TechnoMistress pointed out, no one was actually killed.
A lot of my issue with the pardon comes because it sure looks like it was in return for Ross’s mother’s large contributions to Trump’s campaign.
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My biggest problem with some of his pardons is that it’s killed the news on Biden’s last minute pardons. Especially the ones for just some of his family. Seems odd to use pardons as protection, but only for some of them.
Unfortunately, pardons are used to return favors. Or to prepay them. It’s a power that I think is worth the inevitable corruption.
Biden’s pardoning of his family is also inexcusable.
Trump has, however also done a lot of other things that will negatively impact not just us, but the rest of the world. Like it or not, we live in the world and we share it with a lot of other people. He keeps proving that he cares about himself, money, and himself.
Left the Paris climate accords - There are 8 billion people on this planet. If we don’t protect it, it’s going to become less and less habitable. For ALL of us.
Blocking birthright citizenship - What hoops does he want people to go through to become citizens?
Rename the Gulf of Mexico - What the…? This makes no sense at all.
Resumed oil and gas leases off othe coast of Alaska - Again, no care about the environment of the world we ALL live in. He appears to just see the dollar signs.
25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico - Well, there’s a 25% increase to us on goods imported from those countries.
Ended all federal work from home programs - Well that will increase costs both to the workers and to the government as they need to provide office space and resources for them. This may need to be looked at, but ending them completely makes no sense.
Revoked the order that lowers drug prices for Medicare and Medicaid - Well, us poor, older people are screwed.
This isn’t even close to everything, and he’s been in office for two days.
I have no idea what this is about. Leaving WHO, Paris, and such I can see, WHO was pretty useless for COVID, Paris Accords we beat the targets last time we left, and the worst offenders aren’t affected either way.
Federal Work From Home… Typical boomer business man BS. If they are doing the job, leave them alone, but from what I know of federal worker union rules you can’t fire them even if they come in and don’t work. So meh.
Drug order, same thing Biden did when he took office so his EO was the one that did it. I’d expect legislation or another EO to put most of this back in place. I’m not a fan of federally mandated pricing, but if you are going to do it Insulin is a prime candidate.
Birthright citizenship is an odd duck all around. It doesn’t make sense that someone here illegally can have a kid here and they are a citizen, but it also doesn’t make sense if they are here legally that the kid should require extra paperwork.
I think the process for legal immigration is needlessly complicated, much easier than Mexico or Canada mind you, but still needs simplification. And then illegal immigration needs a hard stop. But I think fixing regular immigration should be done first.
Also, the people claiming near slave labor is necessary for our economy to work are not doing their position any favors. It doesn’t help that it’s the same party that wondered how we would make it without slaves, using almost the same language.
Not just increased prices, but also potential decreased revenue for suppliers of goods due to targeted tariffs on our side. The last time Trump was in office and tried to pull this crap, our Federal government levied a tariff on bourbon from the US which caused a lot of impact and pushback from US whiskey distillers. Our current premier is threatening not to tariff US alcohol, but to pull it all from the shelves of the government-run liquor stores.
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I feel like a lot of this is just a dick measuring contest. Unfortunately it has real world consequences.
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Also I didn’t appreciate being explicitly targeted less than 12 hours into the new administration. They can fuck all the way off with that.
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Trump’s actions listed above and below are from the first seven hours he was President again.
Tariffs have been delayed until February 1. Canada already has their retaliatory tariffs picked out. One of them is orange juice. Guess which state is famous for it.
I will have to find the chart and the other stats, but it’s something like we import about 2-3 times more from Canada than they do from us. Among what we import is oil, electricity, lumber, cars and car parts.
Trump admits that ending birthright citizenship probably won’t go anywhere since it takes changing the U.S. Constitution. He also admitted around November 28 that once prices get high, getting them to go down again is difficult. This was during his interview for Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year” issue released mid-December. But wouldn’t you know it? He was still saying up to the day it came out that he was going to lower costs. In fact, he “won [the election] on groceries”.
Remember when he repeatedly boasted he could end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours or less? His envoy is now saying, “Yeah, no. More like 100 days, maybe more. Might have to keep extending the new target date as we go.”
Oh, and the US is cutting ties with the World Health Organization and health departments have been directed to suspend external communications until the people assigned to review any outbound messages are appointed.
This is a pretty good infographic, albeit from a Canadian perspective. This is the article it’s from.
There’s a good summary at the beginning of the article:
Unfortunately, where almost our provinces were aligned on retaliatory tariffs, some are now starting to back off and say “hey, don’t put tariffs on my province’s exports”. Ontario (my province), however, is still very much on board with not only retaliatory tariffs but also with a boycott of American liquor in all its stores, which will be good (hopefully) for our own wine, craft beer, and liquor producers.
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I mean, there’s a great side by side with a full-on neo-nazi. And he did it twice and has not said “oh yeah, that was a mistake.”
Plus Musk keeps making friends with groups like Germany’s far right party AfD which is definitely racist. How much evidence do you need?
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You know how some pro-life people like to say “Life begins at conception”? Well, according to the executive order just signed by Trump, there are only two genders for government-issued ID and your gender is determined at conception. Here’s the official wording:
- A female is “a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell”.
- A male is “a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell”.
So, guess what, folks? Every person in the United States of America is now officially female because the order specifies “at conception”. It isn’t until around six week after conception that the SRY gene becomes active and the cells begin changing to create male traits. In other words, everyone starts as female at the moment of conception.
Since I was was issued an ID by the U.S. Government in the form of my Social Security card, I am now officially a woman. I went to sleep last night thinking I was male and I woke up this morning to find out I’ve been a woman for over half a century.
This is really big news to me. Do I need to get a new wardrobe? I’d definitely have to go shopping in the plus size section. Can I claim the new clothes on my taxes because I’m revamping what I wear to conform with my new official designation?
In addition to how short-sighted this executive order is (but what else would we expect from him), this is causing more problems. In all seriousness because I don’t have a lot of knowledge on the subject, am I officially a cross-dresser now? I have a body with male traits and characteristics, so I’ve been wearing clothing made for males.
If I were to start undergoing treatments so my body would be female, it would make me a transgender person under the definition that was in effect as of last week. But I’d be aligning my body to my new US government-ordered gender, so would I stop being transgender because I’m changing my biology that first changed about six weeks after I was conceived?
The irony of the flaw in Trump’s executive order was pointed out by Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender person elected as a state senator in the United State, who now serves in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Switching to snark mode, another irony of the flaw in Trump’s executive order is Trump’s now female and he’s had three same-sex marriages.
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I’m sure they will eventually correct it to say that it’s based on whether you’re XY or XX, but then what about XXY, XYY? What about Swyer’s syndrome? A person has spent their entire life as a woman only to find out that they have XY chromosomes, do they now have to change their gender to male? What about children that are born IS? Do they have to have a DNA test and then have gender reassignment surgery to match that?
So many questions.
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That’s why it’s a complicated topic and maybe not something that government should be making hasty decisions on.
Empathy seems like the best bet. It almost always does. Except for self-declared assholes.
We’re complicated weird conglomerations of things. Human beings are complicated. Your gender shouldn’t change how we interact so why shouldn’t I go with the flow and use whatever pronouns you ask for?
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We didn’t even make it to February 1st. In the words of Kosh, the Vorlon ambassador to Babylon 5: “And so it begins.”
Trump ordered a “large number of illegal Criminals” shipped out on two repatriation flights to Columbia. Columbian President Gustavo Petro refused to allow them to land. Trump’s response (with all of Trump’s weird capitalization choices):
- Emergency 25% tariffs on all goods coming into the United States. In one week, the 25% tariffs will be raised to 50%.
- A Travel Ban and immediate Visa Revocations on the Columbian Government Officials, and all Allies and Supporters.
- Visa Sanctions on all Party Members, Family Members, and Supporters of the Colombian Government.
- Enhanced Customs and Border Protection Inspections of all Columbian Nationals and Cargo on national security grounds.
- IEEPA Treasury, Banking and Financial Sanctions to be fully imposed.
The wording implies the 25% tariff now, 50% next week, is only on Columbia.
Here is Gustavo Petro’s response (translated):
I don’t like your oil, Trump, you’re going to wipe out the human species because of greed. Maybe one day, over a glass of whiskey, which I accept, despite my gastritis, we can talk frankly about this, but it’s difficult because you consider me an inferior race and I’m not, or is any Colombian.
So if you know someone who is stubborn, that’s me, period. You can try to carry out a coup with your economic strength and your arrogance, like they did with Allende. But I will die in my law, I resisted torture and I resist you. I don’t want slavers next to Columbia, we already had many and we freed ourselves.
You will kill me, but I will survive in my people, which is before yours, in the Americas. We are the peoples of the winds, the mountains, the Caribbean Sea and of freedom.
You don’t like our freedom, okay. I don’t shake hands with white slavers. I shake hands with the white libertarian heirs of Lincoln and the black and white farm boys of the USA, at whose graves I cried and prayed on a battlefield, which I reached after walking the mountains of Italian Tuscany and after being saved from Covid.
They are the United States and before them I kneel, before no one else.
Overthrow me, President, and the Americas and humanity will respond.
Your blockade does not scare me, because Columbia, besides being the country of beauty, is the heart of the world. I know that you love beauty as I do, do not disrespect it and you will give it your sweetness.
FROM TODAY ON, COLUMBIA IS OPEN TO THE ENTIRE WORLD, WITH OPEN ARMS, WE ARE BUILDERS OF FREEDOM, LIFE AND HUMANITY.
I am informed that you impose a 50% tariff on the fruits of our human labor to enter the United States, and I do the same.
Let our people plant corn that was discovered in Colombia and feed the world.
So Trump says we’re starting with a 25% tariff that will become 50% the first week of February and Petro says “right back atcha, but at 50% right now”.
But don’t worry, Trump reassured everyone that tariffs “won’t cost Americans anything” because it’s the other country that pays the tariff, not the US.
We won’t see the price change on Starbucks’ Colombia blend of coffee that uses only beans from Colombia. We won’t see an increase in the cost of roses, bananas, nuts, fruits and melons that come from there. Or other live trees, plants, bulbs and roots. Or mineral fuels, oils and distillation products. Or tea, spices and mate (a South American beverage). Or plastics, electrical and electronic equipment, aluminum, sugar and sugar confectionary, and a whole bunch of other things that Columbia exports to the US.
But since Trump says the country that imposes the tariff doesn’t pay it, the US will see an increase on these things that we export to Colombia: mineral fuels, oils and distillation products, machinery, nuclear reactors, boilers, cereals, aircraft, spacecraft, organic chemicals, plastics, pharmaceutical products and a whole bunch of other things.
There’s already been panic buying by both end consumers and companies trying to build stockpiles before tariffs would hit, and the result is some supply chain shortages. We’ll see how much more panic buying this causes.
Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if other countries started their tariffs against the US without waiting for Trump to do it first. But, they know a tariff on imports immediately punishes their own citizens. The only punishment to the exporting country is when companies in the destination country start reducing what they buy from the importer.
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That lasted a couple hours. The people taking joy in their original response confuse me. People travel from Columbia, through multiple other nations to enter the US illegally, they commit other crimes while they are here, and when we send them home you are sad? It would be one thing if these were people who were going to their asylum hearings and going through the process.
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